Jimmy Cholley

By now you should already know that we’re going to premiere the new Trois CCD video tomorrow, but you might not know much about Jimmy Cholley, the man behind this all VX1000 project.

We’ve been on many adventures with him and we thought it would be nice to break the quarantine boredom for a quick virtual coffee chat so you can learn a bit more about his unconditional love for his camera, his new video and his future projects.

So Jimmy, can you please introduce yourself to our readers who don’t know you yet?
I’m Jimmy Cholley, I’m 26 years old and I come from a small village lost in Alsace and I moved to Paris 7 or 8 years ago.
I moved to Paris shortly after you and I’ve always known you with a camera, when did you start filming?
It’s hard to say. I believe it was something like two years after I started skateboarding, I was around 14 years old and I watched skate videos all the time. I was downloading my favorite ones and making my own edits, but it was kinda frustrating because it wasn’t my own footages. Later on I heard that someone was selling his camera and fisheye, the quality was pretty crappy, but the idea of owning a camera sounded crazy to me so I asked my mum if she could buy it to me for my birthday. As soon as I got it, I started filming my homies.

When did you fall in love with the VX1000?
I had no idea what a VX1000 was when I started. I remember I was filming here and there and I met this guy who was opening a skate shop and I started filming with him a bit. He would show me videos I didn’t knew about like the ones from Josh Stewart and I was freaking out on the footages. When I learned what he was filming with I started to save a bunch of money to buy one. It took me a while but, I finally got my first VX with a Raynox fisheye that I had modified to make it look like a Century MK1. Unfortunately the VX died after only 2 months.

These things are so delicate.
Yeah, I was so bummed to have put all my savings in an old camera that can break down at any moment, but once you started to film with a VX, it’s hard to go back to something else so I saved again, ruined myself buying a new one and the story started all over again.

But if I remember well you sold it at some point right? Were you over it or wanted to focus on skating?
Yeah well, after I moved to Paris I remember we went to the Créteil plaza to shoot, I was filming long lens and my fisheye was in the camera bag, when I went to grab it, I realized it was no longer there. Someone had stolen it from me and I was too broke to get a new one. Also, I was skating more than I was filming so at that point I decided I would rather sell the VX and get some skate gear. It didn’t take long before I regretted my decision…

I can imagine that!
I sold it for like 150 euros, so dumb…

Do you think the thief knew what he was stealing?
I don’t know and I never found out who did it, but maybe there’s a guy in Créteil making trap music clips in his bedroom with my MK1 haha.

Can you tell us how did Trois CCD started?
Before my fisheye was stolen we had already started a project called Triangle 3000 with Joshua Marques and Cesar Dubroca so there was already a foundation. After two years without filming I started to become very frustrated about it seeing all the cool edits people were doing and me doing nothing so once again I saved a bunch of money again and got a new one. From then on we started to film almost everyday like in the good old days. This VX didn’t lasted long though but I was already used to it haha.

Depending on what spot you found on Google Maps…
Haha yeah I spend a lot of time on there! Morning coffee and cig looking for skate spots on Maps is my daily routine.

It’s already your 3rd video (V1 and Silver Surfer were the first ones), can you tease us about the new one?
I think we released V1 a year ago or so we’ve been filming in Paris since then with a two weeks break in San Francisco. I had a bunch of footages already and was about to release a new edit but then I met all the guys from the South (aka The Smoking Club) and we started filming a lot together. I just kept on filming and then some more people joined the project so I ended up with a lot of footages, so much that my hard drive was full! Since I had a lot of free time because of the lockdown I thought now would be a good time to release something.

Are you already working on a new project, a trip, a single part for one of the boys maybe?
Well, as I speak we were supposed to be in Greece to shoot a new video with everyone but the only piece of Greece I saw is the Tzatziki in my fridge... thank you damn virus.
Also our friends from SF are supposed to come this summer so it would be a good opportunity to make a special edit with them.

Hopefully we’ll all be able to travel.

What about the Trois CCD clothing line you’re working on?I drew a bunch of stuff but Cesar did most of the visuals since the early beginning, he's really good! I wanna make a serie of Trois CCD t-shirts that we're going to silkscreen in his workshop. Edouard Depaz also drew some cool stuff for it.

Nice! It’s really hard for us skateboarders to be stuck inside while we usually spend most of our time in the street, did you escaped the quarantine for a little session?
To be honest I didn’t step on my board a single time in a month, I thought about going for a quick session but Montmartre paved streets are not ideal for a 1 hour chill session. As I told I use these weird times to work on other stuff and more importantly spend time with my girlfriend.

That’s good too. Are you planning to do some social distance filming or leave the fisheye in the camera bag and film long lens when this is over?
Haha no way I’d rather catch that shit than film a meter away with a MK1!
Well at least if you keep on filming fisheye no trap music clip maker is gonna steel it!
Don’t laugh too much it might be the same guy who stole your camera!
Haha it’s gotta be the same moron.

Well thanks for the talk, hope to see yon soon on the spot!
Thank you, I’ll see you soon with my mask and gloves on!
Interview & Photos: Clément Chouleur